Don't write off our youngest team ever

What  realistically is our chance of footing it in the premier national amateur team matchplay golf tournament, let alone winning next week?

For starters, only top seed Ben Swinburne is familiar with the Toro Interprovincials in the Stortford Auto Sales Hawke's Bay senior men's representative team.

One round, that's the sum total of the young Ongaonga Golf Club member's experience - or perhaps flirtation - as the reserve player last year.

The other members of this year's six-man team have no experience.

"On paper it's not looking strong, but there's a good feeling out there and we may upset the odd team," Bay manager Allen Forrest says.

"It's the most inexperienced team for a long time but, in saying that, it's interesting," Forrest says.

In playing order, No2 Sam Penrice (Maraenui GC), No3 Matthew Mouat (Hastings GC), No4 Kieran Goodall (Maraenui GC), No5 Paul Malcolm (Waipukurau GC) and No6 Justin Campbell (Hastings GC) will shoulder the hopes of the province in the week-long annual tourney to be staged at the Poverty Bay Golf Club from Tuesday next week.

It'll culminate with the semifinals and final on Saturday, November 26, and Mouat will captain the side.

Forrest says don't write off the youngest team the Bay has probably ever fielded.

"In the last round of the Shand Cup [early last month at Strathford] we upset Taranaki 7-3 and Taranaki went on to win the cup so don't write us off," says Forrest, of Porangahau.

Like any team, the Bay senior are rebuilding.

The exodus of Nick Gillespie, Pieter Zwart, Daniel Pearce (all professionals now) and Richard Squire (ex-pro now living and playing for Wellington) has left a vacuum. Carl Lomas is not in the mix this year.

"I'd like to think we'll win a few games," Forrest says after the Bay team played a composite Poverty Bay team, comprising two interprovincial players, beating them 6-0 at the tourney venue.

Interestingly, the Bay will play Poverty Bay in the first round.

While the hosts are traditionally the whipping boys of the interprovincials most teams who wear the underdogs' collar tend to grow a leg with home-ground advantage.

"These boys [Bay reps] need encouraging, not discouraging," he says, adding it was business as usual for Malcolm and Campbell vying for the 5th and 6th spot in the team.

He feels there's little between the Bay amateurs.

"We'll be using Justin Campbell if anyone has a bad round."

Last year No6 Swinburne teed up in one round after Carl Lomas found himself in the doldrums but this year the sixth man will be a pivotal part any time the team stutters.

The Bay have won the interprovincials in 1961, 1963 and 1969.

Last year the expectations were high during the interprovincials at Kapiti Coast, but the golf savvy Bay boys came up shy at the Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club.

Having beaten Wellington, the Bay succumbed to Canterbury and Southland.

On the penultimate day, the coach-less side were relying on Aorangi upsetting North Harbour to give the Bay a chance in the play-offs but the northerners flogged the southerners 5-0.

Hawke's Bay (in playing order): 1 Ben Swinburne (Ongaonga GC), 2 Sam Penrice (Maraenui GC), 3 Matthew Mouat (Hastings GC), 4 Kieran Goodall (Maraenui GC), 5 Paul Malcolm (Waipukurau GC), 6 Justin Campbell (Hastings GC).